Taylor's Temptation

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Last night. When some extremely passionate kisses had nearly led to getting it on right out in the open, in an alley not far from Harvard Square.

“I got coffee and muffins,” Bobby said, deftly changing the subject. “Do you have time to sit and talk?”

Colleen watched as he lowered himself back onto the grass. Gingerly. Why hadn’t she noticed that last night? She was so self-absorbed. “Yes. Great. Let’s talk. You can start by telling me how many times you were shot and exactly where.”

He glanced at her as she sat down beside him, amusement in his dark eyes. “Trust Wes to be melodramatic. I took a round in the upper leg that bled kind of heavily. It’s fine now—no problem.” He pulled up the baggy leg of his shorts to reveal a deeply tanned, enormously muscular thigh. There was a fresh pink scar up high on his leg. Where it would really hurt a whole lot to be shot. Where there were major veins—or were they arteries?—which, if opened, could easily cause a man to bleed to death very quickly.

Wes hadn’t been melodramatic at all. Colleen couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t stop staring at that scar. Bobby could have died.

“It’s my shoulder that’s giving me the trouble,” Bobby continued, pulling his shorts leg back down. “I was lucky I didn’t break a bone, but it’s still pretty sore. I’ve got limited mobility right now—which is frustrating. I can’t lift my arm much higher than this.”

He demonstrated, and Colleen realized that his ponytail wasn’t a fashion statement after all. He was wearing his hair like that because he wasn’t physically able to put it back in his usual neat braid.

“I’m supposed to take it easy,” he told her. “You know, not push it for another week.”

He handed her a cup of coffee and held open a bag that contained about a half a dozen enormous muffins. She shook her head. Her appetite was gone.

“Can you do me a favor?” she asked. “Next time you or Wes get hurt, even if it’s just something really little, will you call me and let me know? Please? Otherwise I’m just going to worry about you all the time.”

Bobby shook his head. “Colleen…”

“Don’t Colleen me,” she countered. “Just promise.”

He looked at her. Sighed. “I promise. But—”

“No buts.”

He started to say something, then stopped, shaking his head instead. No doubt he’d spent enough time around Skellys to know arguing was useless. Instead he took a sip of his coffee and gazed out at the river.

“How many times have you saved Wes’s life?” she asked him, suddenly needing to know.

“I don’t know. I think I lost count somewhere between two and three million.” The laughter lines around his eyes crinkled as he smiled.

“Very funny.”

“It’s just not that big a deal,” he said.

“It is to me,” she returned. “And I’m betting it’s a pretty big deal to my brother, too.”

“It’s really only a big deal to him because I’m winning,” Bobby admitted.

At first his words didn’t make sense. And then they made too much sense. “You guys keep score?” she asked in disbelief. “You have some kind of contest going…?”

Amusement danced in his eyes. “Twelve to five and a half. My favor.”

“Five and a half?” she echoed.

“He got a half point for getting me back to the boat in one piece this last time,” he explained. “He couldn’t get a full point because it was partially his fault I needed his help in the first place.”

He was laughing at her. Oh, he wasn’t actually laughing aloud, but Colleen knew that, inside, he was silently chortling away.

“You know,” she said with a completely straight face, “it seems only fair that if you save someone’s life that many times, you ought to be able to have wild sex with that person’s sister, guilt free.”

Bobby choked on his coffee. Served him right.

“So what are you doing tonight?” Colleen asked, still in that same innocent voice.

He coughed even harder, trying to get the liquid out of his lungs.

‘“Be nice to him,’” she read aloud from Wes’s e-mail. She held it out for him to see. “See, it says it right there.”

“That’s not what Wes meant,” Bobby managed to gasp.

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

“Are you okay?” she asked.

His eyes were tearing, and he still seemed to have trouble breathing. “You’re killing me.”

“Good. I’ve got to go, so—” She started to stand up.

“Wait.” He coughed again, tugging her back down beside him. “Please.” He drew in a breath, and although he managed not to cough, he had to clear his throat several times. “I really need to talk to you about what happened last night.”

“Don’t you mean what didn’t happen?” She pretended to be fascinated with her coffee cup, with folding up the little flap on the plastic lid so that she could take a sip without it bumping into her nose.

What had happened last night was that she had found out—the hard way—that Bobby Taylor didn’t want her. At least not enough to take what she’d offered. At least not as much as she wanted him. It was possible he’d only used his fear of Wes’s disapproval as an excuse to keep from going home with her. After all, it had worked, hadn’t it? It had worked very well.

This morning she could only pretend not to care. She could be flip and say outrageous things, but the truth was, she was both embarrassed and afraid of what he might want to say to her.

Of course, if ever there were a perfect time for him to confess his undying love, it would be now. She supposed it was possible that he would haltingly tell her he’d fallen in love with her years ago, that he’d worshiped her from afar for all this time and now that they’d finally kissed, he couldn’t bear to be apart from her any longer.

Bobby cleared his throat again. “Colleen, I, um…I don’t want to lose you as a friend.”

Or he could say that. He could give her the “let’s stay friends” speech. She’d heard it before. It would contain the word friend at least seven more times. He would say mistake and sorry both at least twice and honest at least once. And he’d tell her that he hoped what happened last night wouldn’t change things between them. Her friendship was very important to him.

“I really care about you,” he told her. “But I have to be honest. What happened last night was, well, it was a mistake.”

Yup. She’d definitely heard it before. She could have written it out for him on a three-by-five-card. Saved him some time.

“I know that I said last night that I couldn’t…that we couldn’t…because of Wes and, well, I need you to know that there’s more to it than that.”

Yeah, she’d suspected that.

“I can’t possibly be what you really want,” he said quietly.

Now that was different. She’d never heard that before.

“I’m not…” He started to continue, but then he shook his head and got back on track. “You mean too much to me. I can’t take advantage of you, I can’t. I’m ten years older than you, and—Colleen, I knew you when you were thirteen—that’s just too weird. It would be crazy, it wouldn’t go anywhere. It couldn’t. I couldn’t. We’re too different and…” He swore softly, vehemently. “I really am sorry.”

He looked about as miserable as she was feeling. Except he probably wasn’t embarrassed to death. What had she been thinking, to throw herself at him like that last night?

She closed her eyes, feeling very young and very foolish—as well as ancient beyond her years. How could this be happening again? What was it about her that made men only want to be her friend?

She supposed she should be thankful. This time she got the “let’s stay friends” speech before she’d gone to bed with the guy. That had been the lowest of a number of low-relationship moments. Or it should have been. Despite the fact that Bobby obviously cared enough not to let it get that far, he didn’t care about her the way she wanted him to. And that hurt remarkably badly.

She stood up, brushing off the seat of her shorts. “I know you’re probably not done. You still have one more mistake and another sorry to go, but I’ll say ’em for you, okay? I’m sorry, too. The mistake was mine. Thanks for the coffee.”

Colleen held her head up as she quickly walked away. And she didn’t look back. She’d learned the hard way never to look back after the “let’s stay friends” speech. And never to cry, either. After all, smart friends didn’t cry when stupid, idiotic, completely clueless friends rejected them.

Tears welled in her eyes, but she forced them back.

God, she was such a fool.

Bobby lay back on the grass and stared up at the sky.

In theory, telling Colleen that they should stay friends instead of rip each other’s clothes off had seemed to be the least painful way of neatly dealing with something that was on the verge of turning into an emotional and physical bloodbath.

Physical—because if Wes found out that Bobby had messed with his little sister, he would have been mad enough to reach down Bobby’s throat and rip his lungs out.

Bobby had been direct with Colleen. He’d been swift and, if not quite honest, he’d certainly been sincere.

Yet somehow he’d managed to hurt her. He’d seen it in her eyes as she’d turned and walked away.

Damn. Hurting her was the dead last thing he’d wanted to do.

That entire conversation had been impossibly difficult. He’d been on the verge of telling her the truth—that he hadn’t slept at all last night, that he’d spent the night alternately congratulating himself for doing the right thing and cursing himself for being an idiot.

Last night she made it clear that she wanted him. And Lord knows that the last thing he honestly wanted was to stay mere friends with her. In truth, he wanted to get naked with her—and stay naked for the entire rest of this week.

But he knew he wasn’t the kind of man Colleen Skelly needed. She needed someone who would be there for her. Someone who came home every night without fail. Someone who could take care of her the way she deserved to be taken care of.

Someone who wanted more than a week of hot sex.

He didn’t want another long-distance relationship. He couldn’t take it. He’d just gotten out of one of those, and it wasn’t much fun.

And would be even less fun with Colleen Skelly—because after Wes found out that Bobby was playing around with his sister, Wes would come after him with his diving knife.

Well, maybe not, but certainly he and Wes would argue. And Colleen and Wes would argue. And that was an awful lot of pain, considering Bobby would spend most of his time three thousand miles away from her, him missing her with every breath he took, her missing him, too.

No, hurting Colleen was bad, but telling her the truth would hurt them both even more in the long run.

Chapter 5

Colleen had just finished picking up a load of blankets collected by a women’s church group and was on her way to a half dozen senior centers to pick up their donations when a taxi pulled up. It stopped directly in front of her, blocking her exit from the parking lot with a TV-cop-drama squealing of brakes.

Her first thought was that someone was late to their own wedding. But other than the representative from the ladies’ auxiliary who had handed over the bundles of blankets, the building had been silent and empty.

Her second thought was that someone was in a major hurry to repent their sins, probably before they sinned again. She had to laugh at that image, but her laughter faded as the absolute last person she’d expected to see here at the St. Augustus Church climbed out of the cab.

Bobby Taylor.

His hair had partially fallen out of his ponytail, and his face was covered with a sheen of perspiration, as if he’d been running. He ignored both his sweat and his hair as he came around to the passenger side of the truck’s cab. She leaned across the bench seat, unlocked the door, and he opened it.

“Thank God,” he said as if he really meant it. “I’ve been following you for an hour now.”

More than just his face was sweaty. His shirt was as soaked as if he’d been running a marathon in this heat.

Wes. Her brother was the only reason she could come up with for Bobby to search her out so desperately. Wes had to have been injured. Or—please, God, no—dead.

Colleen flashed hot and then cold. “Oh, no,” she said. “What happened? How bad is it?”

Bobby stared at her. “Then you haven’t heard? I was ready to yell at you because I thought you knew. I thought you went out to make these pickups, anyway.”

“Just tell me he’s not dead,” she begged him. She’d lived through one dead brother—it was an experience she never wanted to repeat. “I can take anything as long as he’s not dead.”

His expression became one of even more perplexity as he climbed into the air-conditioned cab and closed the door. “He?” he asked. “It was a woman who was attacked. She’s in ICU, in a coma, at Mass General.”

A woman? At Mass General Hospital…? Now it was Colleen’s turn to stare at him stupidly. “You didn’t track me down because Wes is hurt?”

“Wes?” Bobby shook his head as he leaned forward to turn the air conditioner fan to high. “No, I’m sure he’s fine. The mission was probably only a training op. He wouldn’t have been able to send e-mail if it were the real thing.”

“Then what’s going on?” Colleen’s relief was mixed with irritation. He had a lot of nerve, coming after her like this and scaring her to death.

“Andrea Barker,” he explained. “One of the chief administrators of the AIDS Education Center. She was found badly beaten—barely breathing—outside of her home in Newton. I saw it in the paper.”

Colleen nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I heard about that this morning. That’s really awful. I don’t know her that well—we talked on the phone only once. I’ve mostly met with her assistant when dealing with the center.”

“So you did know she’s in the hospital.” Something very much like anger flashed in his eyes, and his usually pleasantly relaxed mouth was back to a hard, grim line.

Bobby Taylor was mad at her. It was something Colleen had never experienced before. She hadn’t thought he was capable of getting mad—he was so laid-back. Even more mind-blowing was the fact that she truly had no clue what she’d done to get him so upset.

“The article went into some depth about the problem they’ve—you’ve—You’re part of them, providing legal services at no cost, right? The problem you’ve been having establishing a center in this one particular neighborhood in Boston. The same neighborhood where you just happened to be threatened yesterday while having a car wash…?”

And Colleen understood. She laughed in disbelief. “You really think the attack on Andrea Barker had something to do with her work for the education center?”

Bobby didn’t shout at her the way Wesley did when he got mad. He spoke quietly, evenly, his voice dangerously soft. Combined with the spark of anger in his eyes, it was far more effective than any temper tantrum Wes had ever thrown. “And you don’t?”

“No. Come on, Bobby. Don’t be so paranoid. Look, I heard that the police theory is she startled a burglar coming out of her house.”

“I heard a partial list of her injuries,” Bobby countered, still in that same quietly intense voice. She had to wonder, what would ever set him off, make him raise his voice? What—if anything—would make this man lose his cool and detonate? If it ever happened, boy, look out. It would probably be quite an impressive show.

“They weren’t the kind of injuries a woman would get from a burglar,” he continued, “whose primary goal would have been to knock her down so he could run away as quickly as possible. No, I’m sorry, Colleen. I know you want to believe otherwise, but this woman was beaten deliberately, and if I know it, then the police know it, too. The burglar story is probably just something they threw out to the press, to make the real perpetrator think he’s home-free.”